ABSTRACT
Most structural approaches to the causes-of-war question fail to take into account differences in how the states under study came into existence in the first place: Were they postcolonial, do the boundaries of the modern state coincide roughly with pre-state societal boundaries, were they formed as a result of national unity movements, are they European settler states, and so on? And since the modern state itself is a product of social forces operating in the context of European history, can wars within and among European states really be compared meaningfully with wars in non-European settings, and what are the limitations of doing so? Still, some generalizations emerge from research undertaken from a structural perspective: new states are more prone to violence than older, more settled and stable states (Wright 1942; Singer 1991; Vasquez 1993); states are more violence-prone following a rapid improvement in economic circumstances (Chouchri and North 1975; Cashman 1993); leaders sometimes use war or belligerent rhetoric as a means of mobilizing internal cohesiveness and domestic political support (Ostrom and Job 1986; Russett 1989); violence is associated with state-creation (Holsti 1991; Brogan 1990; Cohen, Organski, and Brown 1981); and ethnonationalism is frequently the justification used for localized and antistate violence (Garment 1993; Ryan 1990; Gurr 1994). Taken together and viewed from a constructivist perspective, this body of research suggests the existence of a rule instructing and directing the acts of agents in relation to the state: Violence is an acceptable strategic choice as a means for establishing, mobilizing, or altering the structures of states, especially when framed within the language of ethnonationalist discourses.
